‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps' Review: The Best Superhero Saga of the Year

4 days ago

Women with astonishing abilities are an essential component of superhero movies, but as 'Thunderbolts*' proved, the more effortlessly they shoot, kick and punch their way out of every situation, generally while firing off comical wisecracks to show us how bored they are with their own coolness, the less excitement they generate. 'The Fantastic Four: First Steps,' by contrast, zeroes in on a far more interesting superpower: creating new life. There's an extended sequence built around a hero going into labor in zero gravity while hurtling through the cosmos, and it exemplifies the movie's unusual feel: interstellar yet down-to-earth.
Making your characters relatable, likable, charming and vulnerable might seem to be a fairly obvious assignment, but it conflicts with the comic-book-movie urge to make its characters completely and devastatingly awesome. In getting back to basics, 'First Steps' proves to be easily the best superhero movie of the year.

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George Lucas finally comes to Comic-Con to give a preview of his new museum

Hamilton Spectator

2 hours ago

Hamilton Spectator

George Lucas finally comes to Comic-Con to give a preview of his new museum

SAN DIEGO (AP) — George Lucas is finally coming to the stage at Comic-Con. And while 'Star Wars' is sure to get a mention, the 81-year-old is making his debut appearance at the San Diego pop cultural extravaganza for a more earthbound reason: a preview of his long-in-the-works Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles. The Sunday panel discussion in Comic-Con's vaunted Hall H will act as a relatively quiet closing act to the four-day festival that brought its usual series of big, bombastic looks at upcoming sci-fi and superhero projects. The museum-centered session is also meant to be a broader discussion of the new institution's subject matter: the histories and traditions of narrative art across time and cultures. Lucas will be joined by fellow filmmaker Guillermo Del Toro and art director Doug Chiang, who has worked on a steady series of 'Star Wars' films starting with the Lucas-directed prequels in 1999. Queen Latifah will act as moderator. Lucas is easily on the Mount Rushmore of figures whose work has had the greatest inspiration on the kind of films and other pop cultural celebrated annually in Hall H at Comic-Con. But the convention wasn't a common showcase for blockbuster films when he was directing them himself. He sold 'Star Wars' and Lucasfilm to The Walt Disney Co. in 2012, and Disney has used different venues to make big splashy presentations about its properties. The museum founded by Lucas and his wife, businesswoman Mellody Hobson, is set to open next year in Exposition Park, near the Los Angeles Coliseum, several of the city's other museums, and the University of Southern California. The 11-acre campus and 300,000-square-foot building designed by architect Ma Yansong includes galleries, two theaters and related spaces.